Search results

The UK retail fashion sector has been metamorphosed in the past decade with the emergence of new UK players, increased foreign participation and the reformulation of image, and buying strategies by the established fashion retailers. In a market characterized by produce with little generic differentiation, the fashion own‐brand has emerged as the cornerstone of the marketing strategies of the major retail fashion players. Involving representatives of 11 major UK fashion retail companies, seeks to identify the mechanisms by which own‐brands are created and maintained. Key ingredients identified include a sound customer knowledge, the development of an own‐brand image representing a discernible array of lifestyle images through brand advertising and promotion. Also recognizes a cluster of important retailer benefits attributable to own‐branding. Concludes with the assertion that own‐branding is likely to remain a key aspect of the UK fashion market, and questions the future for manufacturer fashion brands.

Undertakes a comparative analysis of the evolution and development of own branding strategies in UK and French grocery markets. Primary research was carried out through semi‐structured interviews with senior managers of French grocery companies to determine the nature of their own branding strategies and to draw out comparisons with the strategies of their UK counterparts. Results indicate that it is unlikely that French retailers will develop store brands on the scale of Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Safeway in the UK. The organizational structure of French grocery business is less conducive to centralized buying and distribution, and conflict between manufacturers and distributors has led to a less efficient supply chain than in the UK. These factors, coupled with a highly competitive price‐driven market environment, have resulted in most French retailers using own brands as a defensive strategy to combat strong national brands. The exceptions are companies which are well represented in the high street (Monoprix, Casino and Prisunic) and Carrefour, the only hypermarket operator which has ventured down the route of the UK multiples with a more value‐added, differentiation approach.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of own-branding strategy and whether branding contributes to higher profitability among industrial firms. Building a strong brand can be a source of competitive advantage. However, brands may not be equally important to all firms, especially in the business-to-business (B2B) context.

This study develops and empirically tests a conceptual model by considering the endogenous choice of branding strategy in the relationship between branding and financial performance. A large, nationally representative dataset from Taiwan, consisting of 13,098 manufacturing firms, is used.

The present study suggests that larger, younger, more innovative and export-oriented firms have a higher propensity to develop their own brands. E-commerce usage is shown to be the strongest predictor of the decision to brand. The positive effect of branding on profitability is evident for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but not for large firms.

Research integrating the perspectives of the decision to brand and branding effectiveness is scant. The methodology used in this study makes a theoretical contribution to the link between branding and firm performance. The findings indicate that large firms have more advantages for building their own brands, yet SMEs stand to gain more financially from branding relative to their large counterparts. This provides the important implication that SMEs benefit from building a strong brand in the B2B context.

While much is made of the contribution of design to the achievement of competitive advantage within the British fashion retail sector, little attempt has been made to examine the processes in which design is managed, integrated and developed within such companies. With the cooperation of 11 of the UK's most successful fashion retailers, this research identifies that the responsibility for design direction and development has moved from supplier to fashion retailer, in order that the latter can fully exploit and protect the opportunities afforded to them through own‐branding. Suggesting that design control affords greater supply chain control, the research also provides a valuable insight into the varying roles and responsibilities of the designer as well as the differing ways in which the design function is managed by fashion retailers. In addition, the research identifies that for some of the most successful fashion retailers, the contribution of the designer has been extended and his or her creativity incorporated into areas of decision making not traditionally associated with that of the fashion designer.

In the gift industry, there are many large enterprises with strong brand image, customer loyalty, marketing, or service, and they are also rich in retail channels and resources. In this situation, how can brand‐new or small companies thrive in a competitive market? The purpose of this paper is to present a case study from the experiences in Taiwan.

The paper uses intensive interviews with company managers; considers the opinions of experts; and collects useful historical data for analysis.

The paper summarizes eight key success factors for Franz: products and places; unique technology and process; unique business model; cost control capability; high growth in the gift market and popularity of orientalism; access to clients; small organizations; and human resources.

An intensive interview is a kind of oral questionnaire. The interviewee responds to the questions in his/her own way to provide significant answers but this may be considered too subjective.

In order to launch a global brand in the shortest time possible through open innovation strategy, some basic prerequisites need to be met. This must be achieved by creating an open company culture fostering the sharing of ideas and promoting innovative and creative skills, along with flexible management strategies leading to a flat organization structure. Only with the existence of such prerequisites an open innovation system can be integrated properly.

Franz is a classic example of Taiwan's brand‐new companies, which accumulate original equipment manufacturer, original design manufacturer, and own branding and manufacturing experience to succeed in their chosen market.

Own brands are now emerging in the cookware market, and retailers are thus implementing strategies which influence manufacturers, traditional shopping outlets and consumer shopping style. This new trend is examined, seeking correlation with other market sectors which have already absorbed the own‐brand factor, relating what is current practice in the cookware market, identifying retailers' own and mixed brand policies and considering consumer choice factors. Cookware brand developments are not expected to differ from those of other sectors. Retailers will try to lead the market through product advancement, while manufacturers must seek to protect their brands by developing added value and using strong marketing strategies to promulgate anti‐own brand products.

Despite decades of scientific and practical experience in the field of integrated marketing communication (IMC), little is known about the role of IMC in the era of new media. The purpose of the present paper is to undertake a first step to close this gap by proposing thought-provoking impulses for customer-centric IMC. This is done by discussing central premises of customer-centric IMC in terms of the changed conditions on the media markets, its challenges and principles and its implementation issues.

The paper provides a conceptual approach to customer-centric IMC by deriving new lines of thinking from a review of existing literature relating to the concept of IMC.

The paper positions customer-centric IMC as an important advancement of IMC. It shows that the most important new lines of thinking which could be adopted as strategic components of customer-centric IMC are relationship orientation, content orientation and process orientation. The paper thus suggests that customer-centric IMC is a balancing act between a company’s own branding activities and the integration of customer-centered issues.

The originality of this paper resides in a detailed conceptual discussion of new insights into a customer-centric IMC. In contrast to existing work on IMC, this paper threads together the existing perspectives on IMC (inside-out and outside-in) to highlight the potential role of IMC in the era of social media (customer-centric IMC) by adding an outside-out view to the concept of IMC.

This case examines the internationalisation of fashion retailing and is based upon the entry of French fashion retailers, Morgan and Kookai, into the UK. The case considers their motivation for entry into the highly competitive UK fashion retail market, and explores, in particular, the methods of entry adopted by these companies. The case concludes with an assessment of the potential barriers that exist in respect of successful fashion retail internationalisation and seeks to identify the internal competencies that are required of fashion retailers in order that they might replicate their domestic market success within other countries.

First, this paper aims to argue that small- and medium-sized manufacturers’ (SMMs’) production-exploitation can generally and primary influence their choices of export marketing control modes (EMCMs). Building on this central argument, two other supportive production-related resources: “production-exploration” and “relationships with home suppliers” are argued that could moderate this proposed effect. Three EMCMs including independent, hybrid and integrated modes, are discussed. Second, this study also proposes that SMMs with an internal fit between their three-key production-related resources and their choices of EMCMs will outperform their counterparts that do not have such internal fit.

This study designed a multiple-source survey to collect data from 158 Taiwanese SMMs that are highly dependent on export sales.

The results support the argument and the study connects the resource-based view (RBV) to the B2B marketing literature to better understand the EMCMs of SMMs.

Drawing on the RBV, this study examines how the three-key production-related resources can influence SMMs’ choices of EMCMs of branding and channels, respectively.

The use of own label requires complete dedication and commitment by all levels of management retailing the product; it must also be backed by constant and rigorous quality control to ensure that customer confidence is built on a solid foundation. Mr. Bennion was speaking at a recent symposium organised by the CIES on the subject of Assortment Management, attended by 115 delegates from ten countries.